12.07.12. Pages Rd Bridge seen from New Brighton Rd
12.07.12. Avon River, upriver view from Pages Rd Bridge. Sandbagged stopbank left, New Brighton Rd beyond stopbank right
12.07.12. Pages Rd Bridge, downriver view, Port Hills. Mt Evans, Banks Peninsula beyond
12.07.12. Pages Rd Bridge, downriver view, Avon River stopbank & Wairoa St, CERA house demolition site. Port Hills beyond
12.07.12. Quake trashed, Pages Rd Bridge abutment wall, Owles Tce
Bexley red zone, Royal Commission, CTV collapse focus. 12.07.12. Pages Rd Bridge along Avon River stopbank: My earlier stopbank trek was interrupted when my Samsung camera had died. With my new Samsung, I snapped broken glass where vandals had thrown stopbank stones at red zone, ghost house windows & doors. Some doors & windows were shattered by quakes, but star splintering on toughened glass were stone-thrower giveaways.
And why should cops chase stone-throwing vandals? After all, CERA vandals would demolish red zone, ghost houses with little salvage work done. Demolished red zone houses were just dumped at Burwood Dump, Bottle Lake Forest Park. (2014. Luke would convert his builder / joiner training & work experience into red zone, salvage work).
I trekked along the sandbagged & quake cracked stopbank to liquefactioned Jack Hinton VC Reserve. Looking downriver from the Reserve, I saw that high tide, Avon River was above Bexley Rd level, hence all the quake flooding & liquefaction at Bexley Rd & Waitaki St
12.07.12. White, plastic, tape cordon. Avon River, stopbank view, broken window, abandoned house, red zone Bexley
12.07.12. Steel mesh fence cordon. Avon River, stopbank view, quake trashed garage, red zone Bexley
12.07.12. Avon River, stopbank view, CERA house demolition site, red zone Bexley Rd
12.07.12. Red zone Bexley, Avon River, downriver view, stopbanks. New Brighton Rd left
12.07.12. Jack Hinton VC Reserve, stopbank, downriver view, Avon River level above Bexley Rd right
12.07.12. Jack Hinton VC Reserve, memorial plaque by Avon River
Why had Council planned & consented all those houses in Bexley swampland next to Avon River? Quake shaking, liquefaction & flooding had ruined the lot. Finished off by vagrants, stone-throwers & CERA vandals.
I circled back to Pages Rd Bridge via serial, quake trashed Bexley Rd, Waitaki St & Pages Rd.
Bexley Rd: As badly liquefactioned as I'd seen it months before: ghost houses interspersed by CERA demolition sites. Gardens overgrown, liquefaction mud everywhere, some tree branches broken by recent snow. Four inspectors, wearing yellow, hard hats & orange, Hi-Vis vests & toting clipboards, wandered along the muddy pavement, checking red zone ghosts.
12.07.12. Quake trashed house, awaiting demolition, red zone, Bexley Rd
Bexley Rd, demolition house window, threat sign:
DANGER!
DEMOLITION IN PROGRESS
Strictly No Unauthorised Access!
Trespassers Prosecuted!
----------------------------------------------
This Dwelling and all Salvage
Materials are Property of Southern
Response
Any Unauthorised Removal of
Property will be Treated As Theft!...
If any Suspicious Behaviour is seen please
contact the Police: Phone 111
Southern Response insurer was quick to demolish & protect its salvage materials, using cop scare tactics, but slow to settle with claimants. Southern Response would become notorious amongst claimants as "Southern No Response."
Later on, insurers would blame slow EQC's muddling for years, deciding on overcap housing claims for insurers' slow responses to claims. EQC had to first motivate undercap $100 000 claim repairs via Fletcher & pass on overcap $100 000 repairs, or rebuilds to insurers. As EQC was slow, insurers dealing with overcap settlements would be slower, as insurers had to wait for EQC's muddling to finish. Never mind homeowners' frustrations, waiting for slow EQC & insurers.
Meanwhile lawyers circled, waiting for irate homeowners to demand court rulings for EQC's & insurers' delays. Group actions pending... April 2015, Auckland lawyers, Crossland & Sheppard would hold a meeting in Christchurch, for irate homeowners wanting group action against slow insurers, lacking "good faith" resolutions.
12.07.12. Quake tilted power poles. Red zone, Bexley Rd cleared of liquefaction mud, houses abandoned
12.07.12. Red zone, abandoned house, Bexley Rd
12.07.12. Red zone, CERA house demolition site, Bexley Rd
Waitaki St: In similar ruined state as Bexley Rd, CERA demolition sites too. Window & door glass was broken by vandals on both roads.
12.07.12. Yellow, hard-hatted, orange, Hi-Vis vested inspectors, checking red zone, abandoned housing, Bexley Rd
12.07.12. Quake tilted power poles. Red zone, Bexley Rd / Waitaki St
12.07.12. Red zone, yellow, Super Silent pump, Waitaki St
12.07.12. Red zone, abandoned house, Waitaki St
Mitcham Pl: I stopped to watch a demolisher bouncing his yellow digger on a rubble pile while demolishing a house.
12.07.12. Yellow digger. Red zone, CERA house demolition, Mitcham Pl
12.07.12. Red zone, abandoned house, Waitaki St
12.07.12. Red zone, CERA house demolition site, Waitaki St
12.07.12. Red zone, sewage-mud flooding, Waitaki St / Waikare Ln
12.07.12. Red zone, abandoned house, Waitaki St. Green Orion sticker on window
12.07.12. Quake tilted power pole. Red zone, house demolition site, Pages Rd
Pages Rd: Still liquefactioned, rutted, flooded, poorly repaired, SCIRT slackness. More CERA house demolition sites. Ghost businesses & shops W of Pages Rd Bridge: Jasper Lee, Mad Dog Pizza. Quake & vandal broken windows & doors. Glass everywhere. I snapped ASIAN 4 KIWIS ghost restaurant, glass door broken open, rubbish strewn on the floor. The ghost business / shops would be demolished.
12.07.12. Red zone, abandoned house, broken window, Pages Rd
12.07.12. Red zone, Jasper Lee, broken windows, Pages Rd. Jasper Lee would be demolished
12.07.12. Red zone, Pages Rd Bridge going east
12.07.12. Mad Dog Pizza, broken windows, Pages Rd. Mad Dog Pizza would be demolished
12.07.12. Red zone, abandoned, Asian 4 Kiwis restaurant, Pages Rd. Asian 4 Kiwis would be demolished
12.07.12. Quake crack between carpark & abandoned, Asian 4 Kiwis ghost restaurant, Pages Rd. The restaurant would be demolished
*Trekked Pages Rd, Bexley Rd, Waitaki St, Mitcham Pl. 86 images.
While ghost houses were demolished by CERA & rents were rocketing, indigents were sleeping on New Brighton beach dunes in sub zero temperatures. Yet CERA minister Brownlee, PM Key & housing minister Heatley said there was no housing crisis in post quake Christchurch.
Meanwhile at the Royal Commission of Inquiry, structural engineers couldn't agree why the CTV bldg collapsed in a heap of broken glass & concrete, killing 115 people in the 22.02.11 Killer Quake.
Engineer Rob Jury reckoned it was weak concrete columns, which needed confinement steel reinforcement. Californian engineer William Holmes disagreed saying it was the joints between concrete columns & concrete beams which caused CTV collapse. (The Press 12.07.12).
The Press 13.07.12. More engineers, mystified why CTV collapsed:
CTV design engineer, Alan Reay blamed cumulative effects of quakes for CTV collapse. Reay knocked the DBH report on CTV collapse.
Reay's lawyer, Hugh Rennie passed the buck to design engineer, David Harding, as Harding had worked 300 hours on CTV design, versus Reay's 3.5 hours. Rennie also knocked the DBH report.
Engineer, Nigel Priestley blamed the non central, side shear wall for CTV collapse, like the non central, side shear wall causing Hotel Grand Chancellor to quake fail.
So far, engineers didn't know what caused CTV collapse!
Coda:
Jan 2014. Most Bexley, red zone, ghost houses along Waitaki St, Mitcham Pl & Bexley Rd to Jack Hinton VC Reserve had been demolished by CERA. All that was left was a few ghost houses & weedy demolition sites with a devastation view to Avon River stopbank. Red zone, Pages Rd ghost shops by Pages Rd Bridge had all been demolished by CERA.
Dec 2017. After an investigation, NZ cops said there would be no prosecution of engineers Reay & Harding, responsible for the CTV collapse, 115 dead. Cops chickened out, saying there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute. Shame on NZ cops. No one accountable huh? So much for NZ justice!
Content & pics Copyright Mark JS Esslemont.
See Engineer shattered after CTV collapse (The Press / Stuff Co).
See Pressure on Brownlee to intervene (The Press / Stuff Co).
See Insurance claim delays unconscionable lawyers say (The Press / Stuff Co).
See CTV engineer faces disciplinary action (The Press / Stuff Co).
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